Emboldened By Many Silences

I had my second surgery a little sooner than expected due to a lot of pain. Here I am last mother's day in the hospital. I am at home, tired now. Groggy as I write.

Audre Lorde said, "what I most regretted was my silences." She wrote about feminism and her breast cancer, and I too believe that staying silent is NOT useful when we have so much we have to learn and share with one another. "What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies that swallow you day by day and attempt to make your own, until you sicken and die of them, still in silence?"

I try to test my silence and put it on the loud speaker.

Today I write:

The leaves of spring begin to glitter
the warm sun across my face
I try to heal under it
my womanhood taken
fear forsaken

I am more a woman today
than I was with a womb
more a woman today
with delicate crepe lines
weaving my hands that still work
more passionate today
than when I screwed to be loved

The sun bakes me and I rise
to learn
to heal
all the wounds
of a young woman

I rise to walk bravely
towards the power of this newer, older one.

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And now for a little ditty: